Bush dodges questions about Rove

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — President Bush on Friday dodged questions about his longtime political strategist, Karl Rove, who has been implicated in the CIA leak case.

"We're going through a very serious investigation," Bush said when asked whether Rove had told him the truth about his role in the matter. "I'm not going to discuss the investigation until it's completed."

Pressed further in several follow-up questions, Bush said he understood the "anxiety and angst by the press" for him to talk about the case but added that he was not going to.

Bush is attending the Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata at the start of a five-day swing through Latin America. It was the first time reporters have asked him about Rove since Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, quit after being indicted a week ago on federal charges of lying and obstruction of justice in the investigation into who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Libby pleaded not guilty Thursday.

Rove, the architect of Bush's successful campaigns for president and governor of Texas, was not indicted. But he remains a central figure in the investigation because of his reported conversations with journalists about Plame, the wife of retired diplomat Joseph Wilson, who became a vocal critic of the administration's rationale for invading Iraq.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald says the investigation is still open, and Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said a week ago that Fitzgerald had not yet decided whether to charge Rove, who has testified four times before a federal grand jury.

Rove often travels with the president but is not on this trip. Neither is White House chief of staff Andrew Card, who rarely misses a foreign trip. Bush sidestepped questions about whether he was contemplating a staff shake-up.

Though Bush declined to comment about the Rove and the leak case, he has ordered White House staff members to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material.

According to a memo sent Friday, Bush expects all White House staff to adhere to the "spirit as well as the letter" of all ethics laws and rules. Counsel Harriet Miers' office will conduct the ethics briefings.

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report.